Sunday, December 30, 2012

#52Books - The End

Welp, I've done it. Despite having effectively given up any hope of completing it 6 months ago, yesterday I finished the #52Books challenge.
According to Goodreads (which, for various reasons, doesn't count a few of them) that's a total of nearly 14 000 pages. There was admittedly a little filler in there - I have put off longer books at times, and while it was a conscious decision to read more art books this year, there's not exactly a ton of text in them. Still - it's managed to fix several bad habits and knock a sizeable chunk off my TBR pile, so overall I'm pretty happy!

A few thoughts on my favourites. I read a lot of non-fiction as research this year, several of which were really great for me but wouldn't be so great for anyone else. Still, Mastery by Robert Greene, and Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman are books I think everyone should read at some point - they are both very new and very, very important. I also loved Eureka by Peter FitzSimons, which is a much easier (if similarly long) read, and is especially cool for people who live in/around Ballarat.

As for fiction, I cannot stress enough how much I loved Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes, or Animal Farm by George Orwell. Both absolutely brilliant, though since I read it much more recently Flowers For Algernon is more prominent in my mind. Seriously, just perfect in every way. To round out the Fiction Top 3 I would probably have to say 1984, although I didn't like it quite as much as I did Animal Farm and I'm honestly tempted to just say Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, which I read last December and which is almost as awesome as the other two.

In any case, if you want to check out my Goodreads profile you can see more ratings and reviews and stuff. Or, y'know, ask me.

So, as for next year? I won't be doing it again. It's rectified a few bad habits but it's also introduced some new ones, so I'm going to try to have my cake and eat it too. It should still be a productive year, and hopefully it will allow me to get rid of the remainder of my TBR pile, including all the longer ones...and hopefully a little more modern fiction this year.

Below is the full and final list, with as many links to reviews and so on I could be bothered digging up. Enjoy!